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PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
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Release: April 27, 1995
Contact: Tom Krattenmaker (609/258-5748)
Better Challengers Key to More
Competition For U.S. House Seats,
Princeton Professor Finds
Note: Jonathan Krasno, assistant professor of politics at
Princeton, is a scholar of elections and campaigns. The findings
of his new book are discussed in the following, which appears as
an article in the university's newspaper, the Princeton Weekly Bulletin.
PRINCETON, N.J. -- How to make elections for the U.S. House of
Representatives more competitive? Attract better candidates, says
Jonathan Krasno.
It may sound simple, but Krasno, assistant professor of politics
at Princeton University, finds the point conspicuously absent from
many explanations for the relative dearth of competitive House
races in most election years. Krasno examines competition in House
and Senate elections in his new book, =Challengers, Competition,
and Reelection: Comparing Senate and House Elections= (Yale
University Press).
Krasno's story starts with the fact that House members are
significantly more successful than senators at winning reelection.
Between 1946 and 1992, he reports, more than 93 percent of
incumbent representatives seeking reelection retained their seats,
while senators' success rate was only slightly above 82 percent.
The low turnover rate in these elections, particularly House
contests, has raised fears that members of Congress have become
entrenched and remote from their constituents.
To explain the gap between House and Senate reelection rates, many
analysts have tried to divine something different in the nature of
the two chambers and their occupants. Some have speculated that
constituents expect less of their representatives than they do of
their senators -- that they want their House members to be
``glorified social workers,'' as Krasno puts it, while they hold
senators responsible for public policy and its failures.
Another theory, Krasno notes, is that it is easier to represent
and satisfy a House district than an entire state. This line of
thought puts considerable stock in the fact that House districts
are often geographically compact, relatively homogeneous in their
political and ethnic makeup, and almost always less populous than
an entire state. As a consequence, the theory holds, incumbents
can make personal contact with a higher proportion of voters in a
House district, and that is believed to pay dividends at election
time.
``They are fine theories,'' Krasno says, ``but if you look at the
evidence, there is nothing to support these distinctions.''
To refute the point about constituents' expectations, he turns to
survey data from 1988-90 that show the public expects almost
exactly the same of representatives as it does of senators. For
instance, roughly 70 percent of respondents in the Senate Election
Survey considered working on legislation ``extremely important''
for senators and representatives alike.
To test the second theory, Krasno compares the reelection success
rates of small-state and large-state senators. Contrary to what
one might expect, senators from small-population states have
actually fared worse since 1980 -- exactly the opposite of what
one would expect if reelection were easier from a less populous
district. ``In fact, most of the turnover in the Senate has taken
place in states smaller than, say, New Jersey,'' Krasno says.
A third theory makes better sense, Krasno believes: Senate races
attract better candidates. Because of the perks, power and
prestige that Senate seats accord, to be one of 100 senators is
more desirable than to be one of 435 House members. ``There's been
an effort since the 1970s to measure challenger quality,'' Krasno
says. ``When you take the candidates into account, there are no
appreciable differences between the reelection rates in Senate and
House elections.''
To measure challenger quality, Krasno assigns a grade on a 0-7
scale; three or better is considered ``good.'' High-quality
candidates can have one or more of several qualities, such as
previous experience in elective office, a high profile in the
state or district, or a history of political activism.
Last fall's elections produced 68 good challengers, according to
Krasno's grading system -- the biggest crop in years. Not
coincidentally, House challengers fared slightly better in 1994
than their Senate counterparts, a reversal of the usual state of
affairs. The reelection rate in the House was 91 percent; in the
Senate, 92 percent.
The political tides that powered the Republican takeover of the
House also pushed an unusually large number of high-quality
Republican candidates into running for Congress. Of the 68 good
House challengers in 1994, 48 were Republicans, according to
Krasno's ratings. (The 1990 House elections, in contrast,
attracted just 30 high-quality Republican challengers.) The 48,
Krasno points out, made up the best crop either party has produced
since the Democrats fielded 50 good challengers in the post-
Watergate 1974 elections.
For the Democrats, 1994 was not a good year. The 20 good
challengers fielded by the party were a recent low.
``If you look at challenger quality in the House, 1994 was an
example of Republicans doing things the way they should,'' Krasno
says. ``They came up with their best group of challengers since
people began measuring these things. Last year was also the first
time that challenger quality favored the Republicans.''
If good challengers are the key to more competitive House
elections and, presumably, to a more representative chamber, how
can the system more consistently produce good challengers? Krasno
says the answer boils down to campaign finance reform, the topic
of his next book.
Campaigns are expensive ventures in this age of media-driven
politics; for everyone but the super-rich, getting elected means
raising large sums of money from private contributors and
political action committees, an imperative that scares off many
would-be candidates, Krasno says. To ease the crushing need to
raise funds, he proposes spending limits and public financing of
campaigns.
``Members and challengers alike complain about the demands of
fund-raising and the brutal nature of politics today,'' Krasno
says. ``Campaign finance reform would make incumbents' lives
better as well as attracting more and better quality challengers
to run for office.''
Krasno has been a member of the Princeton faculty since 1991. A
1982 graduate of the University of Wisconsin, he earned his MA in
1985 and his PhD in 1991 from the University of California,
Berkeley.